Overview

Is your child talking back? Refusing to do chores? Watching television and playing video games all day? You're not alone in your struggle to understand -- and control -- your strong-willed child!

The Everything Parent's Guide to Positive Discipline gives you all you need to cope with behavior issues, both large and small. Written by noted psychologist Dr. Carl E. Pickhardt, this authoritative, practical book provides you with professional advice on dealing with everything from ...

More About
This Book

Overview

Is your child talking back? Refusing to do chores? Watching television and playing video games all day? You're not alone in your struggle to understand -- and control -- your strong-willed child!

The Everything Parent's Guide to Positive Discipline gives you all you need to cope with behavior issues, both large and small. Written by noted psychologist Dr. Carl E. Pickhardt, this authoritative, practical book provides you with professional advice on dealing with everything from getting your kids to do their homework to teaching them to respect their elders.

Product Details

Related Subjects

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 2

Why Discipline Is Hard to Give

It's difficult to offer instruction on how to dole out discipline because it requires patience to give, attention to receive, and practice to accomplish. You may sometimes find it easier to do something for a child rather than teach her to do it for herself. Careful instruction is an investment in your child's future. If you take the time to teach your child to tie her shoes now, you'll not only give her a skill and a sense of competence, but improve her self-sufficiency in the long run.

Making the Most of Discipline

Disciplining a child is a tough parenting skill to learn because neither you nor the child welcomes this negative focus in the relationship. As a parent, however, you know that every wrong your child commits is an opportunity to teach your child what is right. Thus, although you wish your child didn't draw on the bathroom mirror with your lipstick, you took this opportunity to teach her about the privacy of your belongings, where it was inappropriate to color, and how people must clean up when they make a mess.

Problems Can Alter a Parent's Outlook

Parents need to be on guard when a discipline problem arises-on guard against their own actions. When a child does wrong, a parent can also go wrong in response. Discipline problems can affect the way a parent behaves in a way that makes the situation worse, not better. A discipline problem can cause parents to:

*Develop a negative perception of the child: "He was born to make trouble." (No child is born to make trouble.)
*Make generalizations about the child instead of sticking to specifics: "She has no respect for what I say!" (The child was simply arguing about being disallowed a snack before supper.)
*Narrow their perception of the child: "All he ever does is wrong!" (The parent ignores all the child does right.)
*Take personally what is not personally meant: "Why is she tormenting me this way when I'm so tired?" (The child is too preoccupied with herself to consider the effect of her arguing on others.)
*Feel helpless and hopeless: "We've tried everything and nothing works!" (No parents have ever tried every management alternative; they have only grown tired and run out of the will to try anything else.)

If you become so fixated on the problem that your view of the child is negatively altered, get support. Ask a friend to help you list ten things that are going right in your child's life, and ten qualities in your child that you value. This exercise can help restore perspective.

Your Rating:

Your Recommendations:

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked,
or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to
Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original
and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you
and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not
violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help
ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer.
However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or
to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the
information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reminder:

- By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its
sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the
review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.

- Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly
those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com
also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.